


waiting, wishing, wanting

by kamyska



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Bang Chan is Whipped, Childhood Friends, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, that is a tag that already existed and is entirely accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27049099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamyska/pseuds/kamyska
Summary: So, now, this is a thing they do. Some nights, Chris will text Felix to see if he is awake and when he is, he waits for him to climb out of the window and they go on adventures in Chris’s pink car.
Relationships: Bang Chan/Lee Felix
Comments: 16
Kudos: 123





	waiting, wishing, wanting

**Author's Note:**

> so apparently there is a demon going around and possessing people to write chanlix. this is a contribution written through me
> 
> (aka tiffany tweeted 'check yes juliet chanlix au' four days ago and i just had to write this)

If you were to pick a starting point, well

If you were to pick a starting point, you could say it started with the conversation at lunch. They’d been sitting at one of the picnic tables in the campus greenery, a mix of homemade sandwiches and fast food on the table, still on a high from summer vacation and with the nervous buzz of a new year starting under their skin. Everyone had been joking about Chris’s new car, of course.

Maybe, if you were to pick a starting point, it would be when Chris bought the car. It was nothing special, a beat up Honda Accord older than both of his siblings. It had once been red, but rain and sun had bleached it to a pinky orange. Chris had been saving for it for a couple of years now, whatever money didn’t go towards food or rent or other necessities, birthday money he got from his grandparents, the little he made doing his tutoring job. Now, he finally had it and it was his pride and joy, even if several of his friends called it Barbie car. Seeing how that would make Chris Ken, he wasn’t even too mad about it.

During the lunch, it wasn’t the color that his friends were joking about for once, it was the fact that Chris had a car at all.

“What do you even need a car for? You take the bus to campus anyway. Do you have any secret business we don’t know about?” Changbin’s face was either amused or suspicious, Chris couldn’t quite tell. It made his eyebrows twist all funny though.

“Are you in a secret relationship?” Minho asked around the bite of sandwich in his mouth, “Did you buy a car to make out in with your secret girlfriend?” His face was definitely suspicious, one of the scarce moments when Minho looked very interested in what was happening around him.

Now all eyes were on Chris, great. He attempted to defend himself. “No? Neither of those? I guess it’s a bit hard to explain, but I just like having the opportunity to go places when I want to? You guys know I suck at sleeping and it’s nice to be able to just drive around or go to the beach or something. Better than being stuck in your room. Plus, it comes in handy when I miss the bus in the morning.”

Minho did not look convinced. “I still think you’re hiding something from us. But keep your secrets, car boy.” He had let it go then, turning his eyes back to his phone screen.

“What is the beach like at night? I’ve always wanted to see it, but my parents would never have let me go.” Felix’s voice was low in both tone and volume and Chris wasn’t sure if the rest of the table had heard him, but it didn’t really matter when the question was aimed at Chris anyway.

He had turned to Felix and there had been something sad, wistful, wishing, maybe, in his eyes as Chris told him in as much detail as he could about his latest beach adventure. And like always when he saw sadness anywhere around Felix, it had made Chris ache inside, like he had inhaled cold water instead of air, something fundamentally wrong with the world.

Maybe, if you were to pick a starting point, you would have to go way past the lunch and past the car and past the campus grounds, to the unassuming suburban playground where Chris first met Felix years and years ago. They had been little kids back then and Chris isn’t quite sure if it was them or their moms who started talking first, but he does remember hours upon hours spent on swings and in the sand pit, playing pretend and laughing under the hot Australian sun. 

He also remembers the first time had seen Felix cry and felt the now familiar pain in his chest that came with seeing him sad. He had panicked back then, yelled for their moms and tried to wipe Felix’s tears, ended up crying himself because Felix was sad and the grown ups were taking so long to get there and he didn’t know what to do to make things better. His mom had laughed at them afterwards, berating them both for being silly for crying over one scraped knee.

Back at the campus grounds, they had finished lunch but the phantom pain did not leave Chris’s chest, nor did the voice in his head yelling at him to do something do something _do something_ , Felix is sad. It had stayed with him all the way until the evening and it tugged at his chest and his heart and made him restless. It wasn’t until he was sitting in his car, music mellow and the moon shining above him, that he realised that unlike many other things, he could actually fix this. 

The clock on his phone read 2am and he knew that the reasonable thing would be to drive back home and sleep, but he was already on the side of the town where Felix lived and Chris was pretty sure he was going to be awake. Plus, making Felix happy was much higher on Chris’s list of priorities than being a reasonable human.

Which was how he ended up parking his car in front of the Lee’s house in the middle of the night and watching Felix climb out of his bedroom window and into the passenger seat of his car, hair in disarray and pupils wide in the dark, a grin on his face. 

They had driven to Beauty Point that night and sat on the beach until it got too cold to bear, listening to music and the sound of the waves and pointing out the distant lights of ships passing into the harbour. Felix’s smile hadn’t left his face the whole time and Chris reveled in it, feeling light and happy and so, so in love.

Maybe, if you were to pick a starting point, you would have to look for when Chris had fallen in love. This one, though, Chris himself doesn’t know. It must have been somewhere between the first day at the playground and that one night when he was eighteen and Felix was fifteen and properly drunk for the first time. They were sitting on the steps to someone’s porch and Felix had leaned his head on Chris’s shoulder and slurred a “Why does no one love me?” into the night air. He didn’t seem to want an answer and Chris never did give him one because the realization that _he_ loves Felix, is _in love with him_ , had struck him like a lightning bolt and it had taken him days to recover.

So, now, this is a thing they do. Some nights, Chris will text Felix to see if he is awake and when he is, he waits for him to climb out of the window and they go on adventures in Chris’s pink car (“I like the color,” Felix said at one point, “it’s the exact color of sunset. Your car is the sun chariot.”). They end up on beaches most of the time, even if you can’t really see the sea in the dark, because Felix likes those the best. Chris has quickly given up on trying to keep the sand out of his car and bought them a mat to sit on and blankets to ward off the cold, which now live in his trunk. 

Between going to the same university and the nights they are spending together, Chris is around Felix more than he has been in years. There is only so much time one spends on a playground and they had gone to different schools, made their own friends, grown apart a little. They never stopped hanging out or being friends, grew up in the same neighborhood and spent time at each other’s houses, but it was never like this, Chris hadn’t been allowed to occupy this much of Felix’s time since they were kids.

Now, though, he knows all of Felix’s favorite songs and the way his voice sounds when he sings alongs to them in the car. He knows the names of Felix’s friends and if they’d done anything stupid that week. He knows that Felix’s dad works too much and his younger sister just started dating for the first time and that no one in Felix’s family has yet figured out that he sneaks out half of the nights.

He knows so much and Felix knows as much about him in return, and there is a warmth that comes with that, with being trusted to know and being known in return. Chris cradles that warmth in his chest and feeds it every new bit of information, every new feeling and throughout it all he falls, falls, falls.

Sometimes. Sometimes he thinks that maybe he’s not alone, that maybe Felix doesn’t smile like this at everyone, that maybe he doesn’t let his touches linger like this when he is with his other friends. Sometimes Felix curls into him when they are sitting on the beach and he feels so good, so right in Chris’s arms and sometimes they stop at a traffic light and Chris looks over only to find Felix already looking at him and as the light turns green Chris wonders if that means something. But then, Chris thinks, maybe he is just projecting, it is probably just him who wants, wants, wants. Wishes.

It’s raining on the day that Chris decides to drive them to Mann’s Point. Felix is laughing when he falls into the passenger seat, water droplets sparkling in his hair, and then laughs even more when Chris tells him his plans, but he doesn’t protest. He never protests when Chris has a destination in mind, just settles into the passenger seat and hugs his knees to his chest and smiles at the world passing by. Tonight, the car in the rain is a world of its own, a haven of warmth and music and laughter, the city outside smudged lights and and the outlines of buildings, nothing more. 

They stop at the top of the hill at Mann’s Point and the rain falls over them and runs down the windows and technically Chris knows that the faint light he can see through it is the city skyline. Practically, though..

“Well,” Felix is laughing, his voice airy and light, “I’m sure the view is beautiful. Sadly, though, I can’t see shit.”

That makes Chris chuckle. “I’m sorry, do you mind?”

“No,” Felix smiles, “would much rather be looking at you anyway.”

Chris chokes on air. “Sorry, what?”

Felix is blushing and it is the most beautiful thing Chris has seen in his life and then he leans over the center console and he looks equal parts bashful and determined as he puts a hand on Chris’s cheek and speaks again, his voice low, low, like he is sharing a secret.

“I’d rather be looking at you. I’m always looking at you, haven’t you noticed?” 

And then Felix’s nose brushes against his cheek and Chris feels the ghost of his breath on his lips and he doesn’t know who crosses the last bit of distance but suddenly they are kissing, his lips on Felix’s lips, Felix’s hand in his hair and his hand on Felix’s waist and Chris can’t quite believe this is real. That doesn’t stop him from kissing Felix the way he has wanted to for years, soft and gentle, the way Felix deserves to be kissed, and then firmer, hotter, more, because now that Chris has been allowed to do this he doesn’t know how to stop. It seems alright though, because Felix is making tiny little noises against Chris’s mouth and kissing him back, fingers tangled firmly in Chris’s hair.

Maybe, if you were to pick a starting point, it would be now.

**Author's Note:**

> if you made it this far i luv u
> 
> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kamyskamyska)


End file.
